


Brilliant, Not Invincible

by corruptedkid



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Kaiju War (Pacific Rim), M/M, Manic Episode, Mental Health Issues, Neurodivergent Newton Geiszler, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-04 21:53:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16797763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corruptedkid/pseuds/corruptedkid
Summary: In the whirlwind of the next few days, Hermann pours himself into his calculations. So much, in fact, that he forgets to be attentive to Newton’s. To Newton in general. He works, and that’s what matters. But he also talks Hermann’s ear off, jabbering about the significance of everything he’s doing and everything he isn’t, building up momentum until it burns around him.The red flags fly right on by.





	Brilliant, Not Invincible

**Author's Note:**

> woohoo, my first newmann fic! it'll be the first of many, if i know myself at all. i had a lot of fun with this, please enjoy :>

The most unfortunate fact of Newton Geiszler is that he wants to be liked.

Hermann has never cared about such things. He can do his job perfectly well with or without the affection of his colleagues, and if he’s perfectly honest, he does better without it. 

Newton is different. He has people that make him laugh, and he makes them laugh, too, until he starts going on about kaiju liver samples and they all gradually lose interest. The heart of the matter is, people _like_ Newton, at least some of the time. But not enough. He’s an exchange of words, a passing glance, a wave from across the mess hall. They call him _Newt_ ; never _Dr. Geiszler_. He reduces himself to the casual for the sake of feeling welcome.

And by treating him rationally, people assume that he is rational. _That_ is the dangerous thing.

They forget his brilliance. They know it’s there, oh, surely they know, but they brush it off. With Hermann, they never forget. Every time he enters a room, there are muttered comments to be made and eyes to be rolled, but everyone stands up a little straighter. If they are frustrated with him, it is only because they know he is always right. He forces them to be better.

Newton cannot do the same. Instead, he sinks to their level. He allows them to forget both his genius and his insanity. The latter works in his favor, Hermann supposes. No one ever knows what to look for. 

It always starts out slowly, like a stone rolling from a hilltop, then gathers momentum all at once. Hermann knows Newton’s usual brand of obnoxious, and he knows when something’s gone wrong. The light in Newton’s eyes shifts from sparklers to flare guns, bright as a neon warning sign. He plays his music too loud. He doesn’t sleep. He talks and talks and spills out theories, each one more ridiculous than the last, but they work. Somehow, they work.

Hermann keeps writing on his chalkboard. Behind him, Newton’s footsteps make a quick beat against the tile. “That’s not right,” he mutters to himself. “There’s too many carbons there, that’d make no sense--unless they’ve got some sort of system for processing it, but they can’t. I would’ve noticed.” 

Hermann spares him a glance. He’s been on his feet all afternoon, talking to himself. A small pile of notebooks has started to accumulate on his desk. “Something the matter?” Hermann asks. 

“No,” Newton says distractedly. “It just doesn’t make sense yet. I’m trying to see if I can…” 

He trails off, and his eyes go wide. “Oh, there’s an idea,” he says, and goes running off to his desk to search for something. Hermann rolls his eyes and returns to his work.

They keep on at their usual pace until sometime after midnight. Hermann finally reaches a stopping point--or a pausing point, at least, he’s nowhere near finished--and sets down his chalk. “I’m turning in for the night,” he says. “Do remember to turn the lights out when you leave.” 

“Yeah, whatever,” Newton says without looking up. He’s scribbling something down in a notebook, occasionally glancing at a bisected kaiju lung for reference. A mess of papers and equipment surrounds him, but as long as he keeps it confined to his side of the lab, that’s his problem.

Hermann’s limbs are heavy with exhaustion as he makes his way to his room. Every day is difficult when you’re trying to save the world, but today has felt especially long. He gets into bed and turns out the light, waiting for sleep to take him.

When it does, it’s fitful. Hermann wakes up again around three, his heart racing. Something feels off. He sits up, running through a list of possibilities. There isn’t a kaiju attack coming; his predictions would have told him so. Even if there were, the jaegers are all in good condition, as are their pilots. And Newton is all right, so there should be nothing for Hermann to worry about. 

Unless he isn’t. 

He’s been twitchy lately, talking to himself more than Hermann. Hermann didn’t think anything of it at the time, but perhaps he should have. Sometimes a single stone is enough to set an avalanche loose.

He lays back down and stares up at the ceiling. If he gets up now, he’ll doom any chances of falling back asleep, and sleep has become a luxury these days. Besides, Newton might be fine. Maybe he left the lab hours ago. Maybe he’s up and working diligently. He hates when he isn’t taken seriously; checking on him would likely lead to the kind of shouting match Hermann is far too tired for.

Hermann closes his eyes and relaxes into the pillow. He really must be tired, if he’s wasting this much time thinking on Newton’s relative state of well-being. As he lets the quiet wash over him, he can almost make out a faint sound coming through the walls. Music. Suspiciously similar to the screeching guitars Newton always listens to.

Hermann resigns himself to another night of sleep deprivation, grabs his cane, and makes for the lab.

He knows even before he steps foot inside that something is amiss. The lights are all turned on, and the previous mess has evolved into a veritable disaster area. There are sheets of paper littered across every surface, left in the wake of Newton’s race against his own mind. It takes Hermann a second to locate Newton. He’s elbows-deep in dismembered kaiju, his shirt streaked with blue. 

“Are you aware that it’s four in the morning?” Hermann asks pointedly.

Newton keeps working. He shifts a piece of the kaiju flesh to a different angle, squinting at it like it’s given him an answer he didn’t want to hear. He adjusts his glasses with his elbow, and only then does he seem to notice Hermann. “Oh, hey!” he says, letting the kaiju entrails slide back. “What’s up, man? You were gone for a while there.” 

He’s lit up like a live wire, his grin as bright as an atom bomb. Just as Hermann expected.

“I was sleeping,” Hermann says. “As you should be. It’s going on five in the morning. This is excessive, even for you.”

Newton rolls his eyes. “What, like you’ve never pulled an all-nighter before? You stay up with me half the time.” He wipes at his forehead, smearing blue across it. Hermann hisses in a breath and limps over as fast as he can to rip Newton’s hand down.

“Go and wash yourself,” he orders. “I’d expect a kaiju biologist to have a little more sense--you’re covered in its blood, you’ll poison yourself at this rate.”

Newton snorts and shrugs him off. “I study these things for a living, Hermann, I know a thing or two about handling them safely. I neutralized the compound, it’s not gonna hurt me.”

“I wouldn’t count on that,” Hermann mutters. 

“Screw you. But if you’re sticking around, could you grab me the forceps? I think I left them… somewhere.” Newton looks around. Hermann follows his gaze, but wherever Newton’s tools are, they’ve got to be buried under at least three layers of junk. Newton smiles sheepishly. 

Hermann scowls. “I’m not staying,” he says. “I’d like to remain semi-functional come tomorrow morning. You really ought to go to bed as well.”

“Sleep is for the weak,” Newton says, poking at the kaiju once more.

“And you ought to take your medication, as well,” Hermann says. “How long has it been?”

Newton pauses just a few seconds too long.

“What do you mean?” he says in an overly-casual voice. “I took ‘em this morning.”

“You’re a horrible liar.”

“I’m not lying!” Newton protests. “I took them, I--I totally did that, okay?”

Hermann gives him a look.

Newton deflates. “How’d you know?” he asks.

“How could I not?” Hermann snaps. “You’re hardly subtle. Now, I’ll thank you to go and get yourself back on track, and we’ll clean this mess up in the morning.” The mere thought of cleaning up after Newton is tiring. It’s like he’s made it his mission to destroy every ounce of order in their lab; it’ll cost hours to get everything back in place.

Newton chews on his lip. “See, I can’t really do that,” he says.

And there it is. The bonus. Every time it seems like Newton’s reached the limit of how infuriating he can be, he pulls out all the stops. 

“What,” Hermann says flatly.

“I kind of… got rid of them?” Newton says.

Of course he did. Hermann pinches the bridge of his nose. “Can’t you get them back?” he asks, fighting to keep his tone steady.

“They went down the toilet, so I’d say no.”

“They _what_?” Hermann has half a mind to whack Newton with his cane. “Why on Earth would you do such a thing?”

“I--I don't know!" Newt says defensively. "I figured it'd be fine! I've been working so much lately, I thought, y'know, maybe a burst of energy might not be so bad! And it's kind of a pain to remember them every day, so--"

“We all have our discomforts, Dr. Geiszler, but we bear them,” Hermann says testily. “Though you may be determined to act like a twelve-year-old child, you are an adult, and are expected to act as such. This is the second time in five months you’ve gone off the prescription. The work of this organization, dare I say the fate of the _world_ rests on your mental capacity--”

“So I’m making sure I can work properly!” Newton says, his voice rising into a shout. “I can’t think when I take them! It’s like--I’ve got all these ideas, all these things that could help people, but I can’t get to them. It’s like half my brain’s just blocked off. What would you do?”

“Half of either of our minds could do the work of ten others,” Hermann snarls. “I expect I’d make do.” He turns on his heel and makes his way to the lab entrance. 

He’s in no mood to deal with Newton when he’s like this. He’ll sort things out in the morning.

***

“Well,” says Marshal Pentecost. “That _is_ unfortunate.”

“It’s more than unfortunate!” Hermann says, indignant. “It’s unacceptable! This is already becoming a pattern, and if it continues, it stands to the detriment of our work--”

“With all due respect, Dr. Gottlieb,” the Marshal says, “what do you propose we do about it?”

Hermann gapes. “Well, first of all, he’ll need a new batch of the pills,” he finally manages. “He flushed the old ones. And after that--can’t you issue an order? Something to keep him in line?”

“We’ve tried,” the Marshal says heavily. “And yet, here we are. The truth is, if he doesn’t want to take them, we can’t force him to.”

“But someone has to!” Hermann says, thumping his cane on the floor. “Otherwise he’ll never take them, and he’ll keep having these episodes! What if this had happened before an attack? He’s hardly fit to collect samples--he’s hardly fit to work at all. _Someone_ needs to be looking after him. For all our sakes, if not his own.”

Marshal Pentecost looks almost amused. Hermann frowns. “What is it?”

“If that’s how you feel, Dr.Gottlieb, why don’t you look after him yourself? You’d be the best fit for the job.”

Herman bristles. “I am a mathematician, sir, not a babysitter--”

“You know him better than anyone else here,” the Marshal cuts him off. “And you do have the unique position of being the only person he’ll listen to.”

Hermann stares. For a few moments, he loses the ability to form words. “ _Me?_ ” he finally asks. “If you are under the impression that Newton Geiszler regards my opinion with anything more than--”

“If it’s you, he’ll listen,” Marshal Pentecost says firmly. “Otherwise, it’s out of our hands. What do you say, Dr. Gottlieb? Let him run wild, or keep an eye on him?”

Hermann looks at the floor.

“If no one else is willing to take on the responsibility, I suppose I must,” he mutters.

***

Newton gets a new bottle of pills, and this time, Hermann makes sure he takes them. Newton complains, but he complains about everything anyway, so it simply becomes a part of their routine. Newton checks off boxes every morning. Hermann reminds him if he forgets.

He double-checks the bottle if he’s ever unsure. Just in case.

***

Every attempt to destroy the breach has been a failure. They’ve poured money, time, _lives_ into the effort, and still, they fail. Hermann barely leaves the lab. Food and sleep are negligible when they’re one wrong move away from the annihilation of species.

He always thought death would be an endless black. Now, he thinks it comes in shades of blue.

Newton’s sent out to San Diego to collect pieces of Clawhook. When he comes back, the shadows beneath his eyes are darker than ever, and for once in his life, he’s not going on about how magnificent the Kaiju are. “They’re getting bigger,” he says, his voice hollow. “And we’re not getting better. We have to be better, Hermann.”

Hermann doesn’t chide him for his familiarity. Hermann doesn’t say anything at all. There’s nothing to say.

Newton is uncharacteristically quiet for the rest of the day. Hermann doesn’t even want to think about what he could have seen that would reduce him to this. It takes days before he starts being obnoxious again, and Hermann knows he’s back to normal. But even then, it’s different. There’s an undercurrent of fear running through the entire Shatterdome. He can see it whenever Newton stumbles over his words, when he gestures too much, nervous energy flying out of him when he lets his guard down.

They have small victories. Newton has an idea for a chemical-based weapon. Hermann’s models start to make more sense. But even they can’t tell them if it will be enough, and that is where the true terror comes from.

Hermann’s busy trying to force prophecies out of them when the silence settles over him. The usual background noises of Newton talking to himself and throwing entrails around are gone. Hermann glances over his shoulder to see Newton leaning against one of the lab tables, utterly still.

“Is everything all right?” Hermann asks.

Newton is silent. Hermann can see his shoulders rise and fall as he breathes.

“Do you ever think about what happens if we can’t do it?” Newton asks. There’s something odd in his voice, something Hermann doesn’t recognize. “Do you really think about it?”

Hermann lowers his chalk. “Of course,” he says. “I would assume we all do.”

“But we try not to,” Newton says, looking up. “We think about it, and it scares us, so we stop and tell ourselves it won’t happen. But have you pictured it?” His eyes are wide behind his glasses. “They destroy the Jaegers. They make it to Hong Kong. They smash buildings down and rip the streets out from under us, and millions and millions and millions of people die, and then there’s us.” The words tumble out too fast. He pauses to swallow, his breaths coming short and heavy.

“Us,” he says. “Without the jaegers, we’re--we’re nothing, Hermann. They’d come in and rip the walls out like it’s a fucking dollhouse, and everybody in here would die. Tendo, the Marshal, everybody. They’d get crushed under the wreckage if they’re lucky, or--or hit their heads, or just jump while they still can.” He shivers. Hermann gets the sense that Newton is looking more through him than at him. “Can you imagine dying like that?”

Hermann stares. “I can’t see a reason to imagine it,” he says. 

“There isn’t a reason!” Newton says. “I-i-it’s just _there_ , in my head, always! What if one stomps right through this lab and squishes us like bugs?” He wraps his arms around himself and squeezes. “Or it rips the floor out and I fall and my spine breaks when I hit the ground? Li-like when you see people in movies get hanged and their neck just,” his fingers spasm, “jerks.”

Hermann finds himself gripping his cane a little tighter. “I can hardly see the point of this,” he says tersely. “We’ve always known your mind was a disturbed place, Newton, but you’ll drive yourself mad dwelling on such things.”

“Or what if it’s you?” Newton says suddenly. “What you’re the one who falls? Or it picks you up and carries you and I find out what you look like when you’re scared you’re gonna--” 

He cuts himself off with a gasp for air. Hermann climbs down the ladder as fast as he can. He makes it to Newton’s side just before his knees buckle. “I can’t,” Newton manages. “I--” He leans heavily against Hermann’s side, well and truly hyperventilating now. “Hermann--”

“The things you do to yourself,” Hermann says under his breath. It doesn’t come out as biting as he intends it to. Newton’s shaking like a leaf, blinking too hard, too fast. Oh, God. Hermann doesn’t want to see him cry. The thought alone makes his stomach twist.

“All right,” he says, “all right, you bloody fool, listen to me. You’re right. Any of us may die the day the Kaiju reach us. But the numbers tell us that that day is not today, and numbers do not lie.” He places his hands on Newton’s shoulders and gives them a shake. “You are not dying today,” he says firmly. “As of _now_ , we are all fine. That is what matters. If we must ignore tomorrow, then so be it. Stop panicking.”

But of course, telling Newton to stop doing something has never been anything more than a waste of words. He’s crying now. It’s not even the kind that Hermann could ignore, either, but uncontrollable, hiccuping sobs, each breath forcibly ripped from Newton’s lungs. 

“Newton,” Hermann says. “Look at me.” Newton keeps his head down. “Newton. _Newt_. Look at me.”

Newton draws in a shuddery breath and looks up. His eyes are red and watery. It should be an annoyance--he did this to himself, dragging up the nightmares none of them want to face--but it sends a twinge of something like pity through Hermann. 

“Breathe,” he says.

Newton breathes deeply. He’s still trembling, but it’s a start.

“There we are,” Hermann says. “Now let it go.”

Newton exhales.

“I must say, it’s a relief to see you recognize that the Kaiju are more than a particularly exciting breed of lab rat,” Hermann says dryly, “but this is a tad much, don’t you think?”

Newton’s startled into a laugh. It eases some of the tension in Hermann’s chest. Newton reaches up to wipe at his eyes behind his glasses, and straightens up, putting a few inches of space between them. “Some people are scared of rats,” he says. 

“You never struck me as the type.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not.” Newton clears his throat. “It’s just… a lot, sometimes.”

Hermann hesitates. “Should I be, ah... concerned?”

Newton winces. “No. God, no, don’t tell anybody. I’m fine.” 

Hermann would never hear the end of it if he went to the Marshal. Really, he should report this, but as long as Newton’s been taking his medication… One anxiety attack shouldn’t be cause for alarm, especially not under circumstances like these. Hermann can spare him the indignity.

He nods. “Right, then. You’re fine. Shall we get back to work?”

Newton takes another deep breath and nods.

***

Hermann actually falls asleep at his desk one night. He doesn’t intend for it to happen. One second, he’s trying to figure out how to account for the time slippage across the breach, and the next he’s slumped over his desk. 

With Newton’s jacket draped over his shoulders.

Hermann sits up, turning to look around. Newton is off on the other side of the room with the Kaiju brain, standing on three stacked chairs so he can reach the top of its tank. Hermann sighs. They _have_ a stool, but he’s not certain Newt knows that it exists. Everything’s a safety hazard with him.

He looks down to find his cane, and realizes that he is, in fact, sitting on the stool. 

Newton’s sticking some kind of device down into the Kaiju tank. He glances up for a moment and smiles. “Morning,” he says. “You conked out hard, dude.”

“Yes, I must have drifted off,” Hermann says distractedly. He almost wants to ask about the jacket over his shoulders, but there’s no point; who else could have put it there? The real question is _why_ , but before he can voice the thought, the answer appears, as puzzling as it is obvious.

He thinks that, despite all odds, Newton Geiszler might be his friend.

***

There’s a constant specter hanging over them in the lab, the ghostly hands of all those they’ve lost urging them to work faster. Newton accidentally melts half his desk when a specimen explodes in a spray of acid. It wipes out a good chunk of Hermann’s chalkboard, too, and he’s forced to begin again. Precision is more necessary than it’s ever been before, but stress makes them sloppy.

It’s not a sustainable model. Hermann knows that very well, and it itches at him, but they don’t have any other choice. Hopefully, they’ll be rid of the Kaiju before they all work themselves to death.

Hermann and Newton spend their time screaming at each other or working in complete silence. Newton’s been attempting to perfect his biological weapon for months now. No luck so far. Hermann doesn’t pay much attention to him. If he finds anything significant, then that’ll be something, but until then, Hermann’s head is too full of numbers to take in anything else.

“Hey!” Newton says, snapping his fingers. “Hermann! Down here, asshole.”

Hermann glances downward. Newton is standing at the base of his ladder, his arms crossed over his chest. “What did you do with my plasma samples?” he asks angrily. “I told you those were important!

Hermann sighs. “Contrary to popular belief, Newton, we K-scientists are not all Kaiju fanatics. I couldn’t tell the difference between half your samples.”

“Yeah, but I specifically told you not to touch them!” Newton takes hold of the ladder and shakes it a little. Hermann grabs onto it for balance.

“Stop it,” he snaps. “You must have misplaced them; Lord knows your station is messy enough.”

“I didn’t _misplace_ , them, dickbag. They weren’t even in my station. They were in the clean sink; storing them next to everything else would have been a biohazard.”

Hermann pauses. “And putting them in a _sink_ wasn’t?”

“I didn’t really have any other choice!” Newton says, frustrated. “The fridge was full and it was too risky to keep them around the chemicals I was--anyway, the point is, have you seen them?”

Hermann opens his mouth to say no--and probably tack on a withering comment, too--but then he stops. Actually, there had been a few tubs of viscous something-or-other sitting in the sink the other day. Hermann had just assumed they were the unfortunate remains of whatever takeout Newton had left to rot again. 

Damn it.

Newton must see the change in his expression. “What the fuck, dude!” he shouts. “I’m trying to save the fucking world here, how am I supposed to get anything done with you--you fucking sabotaging my work?” He shakes the ladder again, harder this time.

Hermann climbs down and takes up his cane, pointing it into Newton’s face. “Lower your voice,” he says. “If you truly do intend to save the world, you won’t accomplish it by having a tantrum.”

He has to admit, it’s a little satisfying to see the outrage on Newton’s face. “A tantrum? That might’ve been the key to unlocking biological weapons against the Kaiju, you asshole! Why don’t you try asking before throwing my shit out, huh?” he yells. “Maybe then we wouldn’t have people dying every day!”

“Oh, please, Newton, as if a few containers of Kaiju plasma were going to save the world,” Hermann says scornfully.

“Not after you got rid of them, they won’t!” Newton’s breathing hard, his eyes blazing with fury. “Just you watch,” he says. “I _am_ gonna save the world, and it’s gonna be awesome, and you’re gonna be kissing my ass for the rest of eternity.”

He storms off back to his side of the lab.

***

The attack on Manila sends the PPDC into a frenzy. Three jaegers to beat _one_ Kaiju. Hermann’s models, Newton’s comments on the increasing size and strength of the Kaiju--they’re all coming true. They’ve never dealt with anything like this before.

Newton, of course, is delighted. 

“I’m almost there!” he yells, running around with his hands full of Kaiju viscera. “I’m tellin’ ya, Hermann, I’ve almost got it!”

Hermann wants to slam his head against the chalkboard. Some days, it seems like Newton might collapse with the gravity of their situation, and then there’s days like these. “Has it ever crossed your mind not to treat this as a celebration?” Hermann says through gritted teeth. “People have died.”

“But they won’t anymore, not after I get this done!”

Newton’s showed Hermann some of his work. Hermann isn’t a biologist, but he’s not a fool, either; Newton might well be onto something. The Kaiju have a weakness to some of the chemicals in the Earth’s atmosphere. It interferes with their cell functioning, or something of that sort. Newton’s trying to exploit it--the problem is finding the right chemical combination and the right mechanism to deliver it.

If he did manage to pull it off, Hermann would… well, he doesn’t know what he’d do. It would certainly be cause for congratulations. But as long as Newton keeps dashing about the lab like a toddler in a sandbox, Hermann doesn’t expect to be giving those congratulations any time soon.

In the whirlwind of the next few days, Hermann pours himself into his calculations. So much, in fact, that he forgets to be attentive to Newton’s. To Newton in general. He works, and that’s what matters. But he also talks Hermann’s ear off, jabbering about the significance of everything he’s doing and everything he isn’t, building up momentum until it burns around him.

The red flags fly right on by.

Except then Hermann walks in at six in the morning to find Newton sticking a giant syringe into his own arm. 

“What the hell is that?” he asks. Newton barely looks up, slowly pressing the plunger down. A bright blue liquid seeps beneath his skin. Hermann doesn’t want to know what it is. He doesn’t even want to think about it.

“Newton,” he barks. “What are you doing?”

Newton looks up. “Hey, Hermann,” he says. “What’s up?”

And that’s when the hindsight kicks in. Oh, God. Hermann should have seen this coming. He should have known from the second Newton started acting optimistic. It’s so difficult to tell, sometimes, if he’s just being an arrogant bastard or if there’s something more behind it. But Hermann knows him. He should have seen it.

“Newton,” he repeats. “What in God’s name are you doing?”

Newton tugs out the needle and tosses it onto the table, beaming. “So I had this awesome plan, right? I was thinking about gas, ‘cause if they can’t deal with certain components of the atmosphere, that’s the most obvious format, right? Except how the fuck can you gas a Kaiju? I mean, they don’t even breathe the same as us, so,” he moves right up to Hermann, “I thought maybe liquids would be better? At first I just thought we could get something into the epidermis, maybe fuck with the skin parasites, but that’d be too slow, so I thought we could go bigger!”

The tattoos wrapped around his arm are beginning to tinge with blue. Hermann stares. “Newton--“

“I was thinking maybe something with cellular respiration, too, but fuck,” Newton says, gesturing wildly, “I was missing the big picture, dude! I’ve been working with their DNA this whole time, why not fuck with that instead?” He looks exhausted, but his excitement is like a rip current; it takes hold of him and pulls. He’ll ride it until it brings him crashing into shore. “I could make them self-destruct,” he says, almost laughing, his eyes wild. “They already kind of do that, right, when we try and get samples? So I could just--I could--”

“Would you mind telling me what you just injected yourself with?” Hermann says, an edge of anxiety finally bleeding into his voice. 

Newton looks down at his arm. “Oh, that? It was, um… mostly sodium salicylate and Kaiju blood, I think. See, I’m kind of the only _living_ specimen in this lab, and I didn’t want to wait for--”

Hermann grabs his arm and wrenches him towards the door. “You’re going to the infirmary,” he says. "You're manic."

“What? I can’t leave now!” Newton protests, wriggling in Hermann’s grip. “I’m not done working!”

“When was the last time you slept?” Hermann demands, dragging him out of the lab and down the hall. “I’m assuming it’s been at least twenty four hours.”

Newton makes a funny sound resembling a laugh. “Longer than that,” he says.

“How _much_ longer?”

Newton shrugs. “I dunno, two days? Two and a half? I lost track.”

“Christ,” Hermann mutters. “It’s a wonder it took you this long to hurt yourself.”

“I didn’t hurt anything,” Newton argues. “I just--”

“Attempted to use yourself as a guinea pig for a biological weapon, yes. Now _this_ ,” Hermann glares at him, “is exactly why you mustn’t lie about taking your medication.”

The corner of Newton’s mouth twitches. “To be fair, though, I did make awesome progress. And you didn’t even notice, so it was pretty much a win-win.”

“I wish I had!” Hermann snaps. He pushes Newton into the infirmary and continues as they go. “I make few mistakes, but this is the largest in recent history. You’ll be lucky if you--”

“Morning, you two,” says a girl in a blue medical uniform. “Will anyone be needing an emergency detox today?”

“Please,” Hermann growls. “Dr. Geiszler’s gone and contaminated himself again.”

“God, can you drop the _Dr. Geiszler_ already?” Newton complains. “I know you’re pissed that I interrupted your morning routine or whatever, but Jesus, how many years has it been?”

Hermann is suddenly very, very tired.

“Ten,” he says. “Ten years. You utter moron, can you not see I’m worried for you?”

Newton blinks. He opens his mouth to say something, then looks down at the blue that’s steadily creeping up his arm. “Oh,” he says. “Huh.”

And then he collapses to the floor.

“I’ve got him,” says the medic, scooping him up at once. Hermann wants to snap at her to be _careful_ , for God’s sake, that’s one of the brightest minds of their age she’s manhandling, but he stays silent. Newt will be fine. As long as Hermann got there in time, that is.

They don’t let him in while they’re treating him, so he waits outside, holding onto his cane more tightly than he’d like to admit. 

After nearly two hours of anticipation, the door opens. “We’re keeping him in for observation until tonight, but he’s fine,” the medic says with a smile. “Want to come and say hello?”

“I’ll certainly say something,” Hermann mutters. He gets up and pushes his way inside. 

Newton’s head is propped up on three pillows. He grins and waves at Hermann. “Hi! Did you miss me?”

Hermann’s voice gets stuck in his throat. How Newton can be so cheerful after nearly killing himself is a mystery, and it is _infuriating._

“You,” he seethes, marching up to Newton’s bedside, “are the most ridiculous, irresponsible, horrible ordeal of a lab partner I could ever be unfortunate enough to--”

“Oh, come on, man, I’m literally sitting here incapacitated, give me a fucking break.” Newton rolls his eyes. “I didn’t die. Calm down.”

“ _Not dying_ is hardly a measure of success.”

“Yeah, well…” Newton shifts uncomfortably. “That experiment probably wasn’t gonna work anyway. Not dying is probably the best I could get.”

“Then it appears we agree on something for once,” Hermann says. As annoyed as he is with Newton, the heat of it is ebbing away rapidly. It’s not every day that Newton admits something he did was ill-advised. That’s the closest he ever gets to apologizing.

“Thanks for bringing me in, I guess,” Newton says, averting his eyes. “That was… cool of you.”

Hermann sighs and sits down at Newton’s bedside. “I was only doing my job,” he says. “You may be brilliant, but you aren’t invincible. Someone has to look after you.”

It’s not just a job anymore. Not really. But the semantics of it don’t matter.

Hermann drums his fingers against the armrest of his chair. “I could… talk to the Marshal,” he says slowly. “About adjusting your prescription. If anything can be done to make it more bearable…”

“We tried, but so far it hasn’t--” Newton blinks. “Wait, you’d do that?”

“If the alternative is more episodes like this, yes, of course.”

Newton sits back, raising his eyebrows. “Huh,” he says. “I… Yeah, that’d help. Thanks, Hermann.”

He sounds surprised, a little touched. It’s such a stark contrast from the way he usually says Hermann’s name--like it’s an endless annoyance, scornful, detestable--Hermann has to look away. “You’re welcome,” he says. His face feels hot. 

He doesn’t think he’d mind it so much, if Newton spoke that way more often. It probably won’t happen, of course; these are special circumstances. They’ll be back to their usual bickering soon enough.

But as long as Newton is still there at all, that’s good enough for Hermann.


End file.
